Our time at sea was a synthesis of rough and calm weather conditions. During the first half of the cruise, the water was still, the air was warm, and the sun kissed our faces during the daylight hours. However after the first week, we were battling high wind speeds and choppy water. We endured the weather until it kept us from doing research. While doing a routine ISIIS deployment into the water, a gust of wind pushed the front of the ISIIS machine into the side of the A-frame. The crash led to a broken part on the A-frame and an oil spew on the deck. The engineers welded the broken part for a temporary fix, while we scientists wiped down the equipment, cleaning it of oil. The welding was enough to hold the A-frame temporarily, but it wasn’t enough to rely on for the entirety of the cruise. So, the next day, we began a transit back to Newport for a brand new part. In the meantime, we did a MOCNESS deployment simply for our viewing pleasure. Everyone anxiously awaited for the nets to come back up, so we could pick through and observe any sea creatures brought back. An array of organisms were recovered. We filled multiple trays and buckets with seawater and lively animals. My favorite was the Dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis). I had never seen an octopus in the wild. I was pleasantly surprised to see its lumpy body in a bucket because Dumbo octopuses belong to a group of deep-sea octopuses. The MOCNESS didn't reach the depth that they are known to occur. Although, it is possible that the octopus was coming closer to the surface to feed on plankton, which we also found in our net samples. Another surprising species was Beroe! Up until this point, we had been able to find many Bolinopsis, but no Beroe. It is bittersweet to know that my time at sea has come to an end. Nearing the end of the cruise, I was desperately homesick! I have never missed grass, dirt, and bugs quite as much as I did on the ship. However, one thing I will miss the most is the salty sunsets. I never got tired of looking at the horizon. If someone were to ask me whether I would attend a research cruise again, given the chance, my answer is yes, I absolutely would. But for now, I'll enjoy being grounded at home.
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This week, Randi and I joined a research team on the R/V Sally Ride to venture into the open ocean. The first day on the water was rough. The boat bellowed through large swells on our way towards the open sea. We did, however, spot some baleen whales grazing the water when leaving the port. Their dorsal fins peeked through the surface of the water, followed by a blast of mist. It felt like they were bidding us farewell on our journey. Despite my efforts to avoid sea sickness, I got pretty ill. It wasn’t the stomach aches and dizziness that affected me, but the stuffy head, low energy, and overall exhaustion. My body was trying its best to acclimate to these unfamiliar conditions. Mercifully, our first day at sea was a transit day, from Newport to Northern Washington, so we got a free day. Within those 24 hours, I slept a lot. The next was the beginning of the chaos that is high stress sample collecting. I had gotten a brief rundown of various protocols in the lab areas, but there was still a ton to learn. There are three operating labs on the cruise; the Sutherland Lab, the Thompson Lab, and the Sponagaule and Cowen Lab. I was assigned to work in Sponagaule and Cowen Lab to help with collecting and processing samples during the evening, and deploying and managing ISIIS during the night. ISIIS is an acronym for ‘In Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System’. It is an underwater camera that captures real time images of marine zooplankton. Samples are brought aboard via a net system called the MOCNESS, a machine made up of a series of large and small mouth nets within a single frame. The entire frame is deployed into the water, and recovered with various organisms to observe. The cod-ends of MOCNESS contain the samples (marine invertebrates and fish larvae) that we sift through. Part of the organisms are examined for morphological features and gut contents. Others are separated from seawater, and placed into containers of ethanol for later viewing. Ethanol helps preserve the specimens for further data collection back on land. I am starting to get more familiar and comfortable with the routine in the lab aboard the boat. Still, every day has its surprises. Most frequently, there have been technical difficulties regarding the ISIIS machine, but sometimes MOCNESS feels left out, so it will also make a fuss. In some cases the fixes are simple, in other cases it has taken hours to work out the kinks and protocols go on pause. Next week, I’m hoping for smoother sailing.
This week our time in the lab was spent extracting data from videos in order to address our research questions. I find it easy to get lost in the numbers and data sets. Sometimes I remind myself that our research stems from a curiosity about questions we acquired six weeks ago. Although I have to admit, as exciting as it is to see preliminary results come together, I think I am getting to the point of experiencing project fatigue. Every two steps forward is met with one step back. Frustratingly (but fortunately) we caught errors in our calculations that required days to fix. Small mistakes in our kinematic measurements, such as inconsistent beat frequency and swimming speed values, held us from producing precise results. So, back to the long list of data sets, we went. We returned to our original video recordings to re-evaluate specific kinematic and morphological values. After these revisions, I’m eager to analyze our results. Results prove that somewhere amongst the trials and tribulations there is a story! With the rhythm and repetition of our sixth week, I was anxious to spend some time outside the small town of Charleston. I think most everyone else was feeling similarly, so the interns conjured a plan for a spontaneous trip to Eugene. We would leave Friday evening, spend the night, and come back in the evening on Saturday for 24 hours of entertainment. The sun was beginning to set as we made our way northeast after work on Friday. After skipping dinner, we desperately wanted food the minute we rolled into town. Our hearts were set on a place called Izakaya Meiji. While waiting to be seated we wandered the nearby streets and enjoyed the hippie-inspired architecture. A summer evening was the perfect time to see stray cats running through driveways and across streets, enjoying their last minutes of daylight. By the end of our walk, Meiji, unfortunately, wasn’t able to seat a table our size, so we split into groups and conquered Eugene Eateries around the block. By the next morning, still conditioned to the early hours of OIMB, so we rose with the sun to explore the Saturday Market. The buzz and liveliness of the market flooded the streets of downtown Eugene. We enjoyed beautiful bouquets, detailed jewelry, and colorful paintings displayed at various stands. The day was heating up quickly, so we continued our travel east until we arrived at Wildwood Falls. The falls offered a perfect swimming hole to cool off. Despite being right next to the beach all summer, it was the first time I swam during the warm season. We floated the water, observing people brave enough to cliff jump. The rest of our afternoon was spent basking in the sun until it was time to go home. It was strange to see two worlds collide. I never thought we would all be in my hometown simultaneously! My dog Maisy was especially happy to have everyone over. She and Randi’s dog, Pigg, played all night. Through meeting all the interns, she probably now has more friends than she does toes. Time here passes without notice. I feel as though I have only been here for a short time, but week five is officially beyond the halfway point for this program. There is still so much I want to do while I’m here in Charleston. One of which is a boat trip. Fortunately, we were presented with the opportunity on a ship called The R/V Megalopa. Megalopa is a term used to describe the transitional stage between planktonic (drifting and floating) and benthic (related to the sea floor) periods of a crab’s life cycle. I think Megalopa describes myself, as an intern, in a metaphorical sense. Up until this point, I have been “floating” through OIMB studying, observing, and recording organisms. This boat trip was the first opportunity I got to ground myself, afloat in the ocean waves. The boat took us about an hour and a half from the shoreline and into the open ocean. I was sternly warned to take sea sickness medicine before our departure. I’m very grateful I did. I was fully prepared to get sick, but I only experienced one symptom - exhaustion. The drug facts do not lie, Dramamine does in fact cause drowsiness. Eventually, I took a short, deep, nap. When I woke, there was much to look at! We deployed a box dredge below the surface and dragged it on the ocean floor summoning its wonders. Dozens of interesting species were brought up for our viewing. Almost all of which I had never seen before. One of the most interesting was a Gorgonocephalus (Basket Star). This brittlestar has tangled, curled appendages that bunch together in sections. They are nocturnal animals, so once the sun goes down, their arms untangle, stretching wide to catch zooplankton. At the surface of the water, we were able to see many ctenophores as we made our way back toward shore. Richard, one of my mentors, grabbed a plankton net and tossed it into the sea. It dragged behind the boat for a few minutes, catching anything in its path, and then was brought back onboard. Continuing to prove themselves as irritating creatures to capture, only one ctenophore was caught in the net. In other boat related news, this upcoming week is Randi’s and my last full week at OIMB. Beginning early August, we will join the research vessel and team’s adventure out to sea on a research cruise! We will be at sea for two weeks, so the timeline for our project here at OIMB will need slight altering. However, I’m very excited to learn about the research that is being done on this expedition! Within the next seven days, I will begin to prepare for a scallywag lifestyle.
This week I took a break from hanging out with marine invertebrates and made it west toward home for the weekend. It’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive from OIMB to Eugene, so I spent the drive jamming to the playlist my cohorts and I curated together. The songs of the playlist combine our personalities and artistic views. It helps me get to know my peers uniquely. It was an uncomfortable adjustment to the transitional weather conditions from the Oregon Coast to the Willamette Valley. I went from being thankful for a 65°F day, to being smothered in the dry 95°F heat. Despite the heat, summers in the valley offer beautiful scenery and wildlife. I got the chance to meet and hold lambs for the first time. A mutual friend of my family owns a herd of sheep, one of which had only given birth hours before my arrival home. Wildly enough, the mother was still passing the placenta. It was a surreal experience to witness. The babies squealed and shrieked as we scooped them up between our arms. The first thing I noticed about them was the little hairs on their head, all tufted and matted. We muddied our shoes and hands while frolicking in the grass with the sheep. It reminded me of my dog, Maisy, whom I was so pleased to see while at home. She welcomed me home with plenty of snuggles. My time at home was refreshing, but I can’t say I didn’t miss the salty winds and long nights with my peers, here in Charleston. The lab was decently calm this week. We wrapped up our filming and ended with recordings of 18 specimens for data analysis. All of our morphological data is collected and is now ready for processing. Concluding kinematic data has taken longer, so we are still in the works of sorting through beat frequency and velocity values. Our primary issue now is finding juvenile Beroe. There is a recurring pattern at the docks. One week we find an abundance of our focus species, and the next we come up empty-handed. This week we were empty-handed. Once again, we are trying to synthesize plankton towing and spawning to obtain young individuals. The concern with spawning is that if we are unable to find adult Beroe at the docks, we cannot successfully spawn young. Randi and I hypothesize that if we search the docks in the evening time, we might be able to find Beroe. In the past, we have found the most ctenophores in the evening. Next week we will continue our long-term search for ctenophores.
There was a big adjustment in our lab this week. During another specimen collection, we stumbled upon dozens of Beroe, another order of Ctenophora. We went to the docks expecting to find many Pleurobrachia, just as we had days before. However, we were met with predators of Pleurobrachia, Beroe. Beroe prey upon various jellies and other species of Ctenophora. We suspected that the incoming Beroe were eating all of the Pleurobrachia at the dock that day, and Beroe were the reason for the Pleurobrachia’s absence. While annoyed we couldn’t find our former species of interest, it presented an opportunity for our project. Beroe are considerably larger than Pleurobrachia. Would recording bigger specimens produce a smoother filming process and outcome? We referred to this Beroe as pickles because of their tubular shape and lack of tentacles. By the end of our excursion, we had collected a bucket full of 18 pickled ctenophores for video analysis. Over the weekend, my cohorts and I camped at Sunset Bay. On Saturday morning, we woke up early, fueled ourselves with bagels, and made our way to the beach for some tide pooling. The rocky terrain was incredibly slippery, it was crucial to avoid slimy patches of seaweed. This was my first-time tide pooling, I was absolutely expecting to tumble at some point, but even so, I steered clear of any falls. It was hard to get bored looking through the nooks and crannies of the tidepools. Crabs, anemones, fish, barnacles, starfish, chiton, snails, mussels, sponges, and urchins made up the biodiversity of the Tideland. I was aware of the boom in the Pacific purple sea urchin population, but seeing the number of urchins in person was alarming. Nearly every pool was lined with spiky, purple shells. We broke a few open and ate the edible part of the urchin, the gonads. It had a fishy brackish taste. Later that evening, we ventured along a nearby hiking trail. The trail overlooks the open ocean. It was a radiant day, great for viewing the big blue.
This past week we have continued troubleshooting with the camera. One of the most challenging aspects of recording the jellies is the time sensitivity. The comb jelly glides across the frame in a matter of seconds. During those few seconds, we manually adjust the focus and hit the shutter-release button just as its body crosses the camera frame. Given that the manual focus needs constant readjustment for nearly every shot, the field of view regularly changes. Due to some inconsistencies in our documented field-of-view measurements, some of our data was omitted. Consequently, this gave us time for revisions in our methodology and re-organization of our data collection. Down at the docks, we found more luck collecting specimens. Finding ctenophores in the harbor is dependent on the tide. At high tide, the ctenophores are swept in as the water rises. We track the high tide to increase our chances of seeing the comb jellies. After collecting a few handfuls of fresh specimens, we noticed curious little organisms attached to their internal skeleton (mesoglea). We suspected the organism was parasitic because of its attachment to the ctenophore's body. It had crept through the ectoderm and endoderm layers of the jelly. We inspected the organisms underneath the microscope in an attempt to key their species. It was determined to be the amphipod Hyperoche medusarum, a relative of crab and lobster. Their relationship to ctenophores is undefined and mostly unexplored, but it is determined that Hyperoche medusarum feed on the tissue of our species of Ctenophora. Their impact on the swimming performance and well-being of the ctenophores is unknown. The most exhilarating experience of this week was at the OIMB beach. During a Friday bonfire, a single orca was spotted far off into the distance of the harbor. The orca disappeared into the waves, occasionally surfacing as it hugged the rocky tides and found its way back to the open ocean. The sun was setting simultaneously. Our last minutes of daylight were spent huddled on the boardwalk, gawking at the water as the orca swam into the horizon line. This was my first whale sighting. I only hope that any whale sighting I might have after can be equally as thrilling as the one at OIMB. Shortly after I arrived at OIMB, we took a short walk to the nearby beach. My nerves and first-day jitters were erased when I observed the various critters and creatures that reside on the rocks and shallow waters; a reminder of my reason for being here. That first weekend before our research began, we explored the campus and its surrounding areas. Local trinkets and pottery shops showed us the character of Charleston, Oregon. Monday marked the beginning of our research projects. The project focus of my lab group is comb jelly (Ctenophora) morphology and kinematics throughout development. I had done some preliminary research before I arrived at OIMB, but I was yet to immerse myself in the world of comb jellies. To begin, we headed out to the docks with a plankton net and scooping device in hand. It was a struggle to find the species (Pleurobrachia bachei) we were looking for. Slightly discouraged by our defeat, my lab partner and I were determined to find our jellies. We headed back out to the docks later that evening. Rays of sunshine hitting the water revealed a subtle cloud of comb jellies. We were headed back to the lab with a dozen specimens that evening. On Tuesday our goal was to work out the technicality of a Sony 4k camera. With the camera, we could film the comb jellies in motion, transfer that footage to a software program, and measure various aspects of their movement and morphology. With minimal knowledge of camera equipment, we had a hard time trying to operate the camera in slow-motion video. Capturing the jellies in slow motion would allow us to analyze their motion in closer detail with more frames per second. By Wednesday afternoon we had finally managed to understand the functions of the camera, but our filming techniques still needed fine-tuning. While we found success with our technology, the comb jellies were sinking to the bottom of their tanks. Their sinking was not ideal because we needed them to swim if we were going to record their movement. We rehydrated brine shrimp (Artemia sp.) and added them to the tanks attempting to liven the jellies with food. We hoped that feeding the comb jellies would revive them and increase their chances of spawning. If they spawn abundant offspring, we can observe their morphology and kinematics from early development to adulthood during the upcoming week.
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AuthorHi! My name is Madison. I am from Eugene, Oregon, home to the Oregon Ducks. I just completed my last term at Lane Community College where I earned three associate degrees focused in biology. Contrary to my Oregon Duck origin, I am transferring to their rival school, Oregon State University in the fall where I will continue my studies in biology. During my time at OIMB, I will be participating in research in the Emlet and Sutherland labs. While I’m not doing marine science, I love to raft, camp, swim, and listen to music. ArchivesCategories |
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